A row of vinegar bottles from pale white wine vinegar to deep red wine and dark sherry vinegar beside a stoneware crock, a wild rose vinegar bottle and a small dish of salad greens

Vinegar: The Complete Guide

Published 9 Sep 20266 min read

Filed under Vinegars Acetaia Malpighi Leonardi Noma Projects Pommery

Every bottle of vinegar began as something else. Wine, cider, fermented grain: give the alcohol in any of them a supply of air and bacteria of the genus Acetobacter will turn it into acetic acid. The starting liquid, the speed of that change and the aging that follows decide what ends up on the plate.

Balsamic has its own balsamic vinegar guide. This one covers how vinegar is made, what the acidity on the label means, what each major type does in the kitchen and how to cook with acid.

Two fermentations

Vinegar takes two steps. First, yeast turns sugar into alcohol: grape juice becomes wine, apple juice becomes cider. Second, with a supply of oxygen, Acetobacter turns that alcohol into acetic acid. Because the bacteria need air, they form a film on the surface of the liquid called the mother of vinegar, which is made of cellulose and can be used to start the next batch.

Speed is where the methods part ways. Left at room temperature, an alcoholic liquid with Acetobacter in it becomes vinegar over months. The industrial process bubbles air through the liquid and can finish within hours.

The acidity on the label is the concentration of acetic acid. In the United States, FDA guidance says vinegar should contain at least four grams of acetic acid per 100 milliliters, or four percent. The Vinegar Institute puts typical white distilled vinegar at four to seven percent and cider and wine vinegars at about five to six. The rules for Vinagre de Jerez require at least seven. A seven percent vinegar is noticeably sharper than a five, which matters when a recipe was written with one and the cook is using the other.

Wine vinegar

Red and white wine vinegar are the workhorses of French and Italian cooking. Red wine vinegar goes into a classic Dijon vinaigrette: three parts olive oil, one part red wine vinegar, a spoon of Dijon (the Dijon mustard guide), salt. It also belongs in a pan after searing meat, in a pot of braised lentils and over roasted beets.

White wine vinegar is the same idea without the red color, and it is the choice when color matters: a beurre blanc, a pickle brine for onions, a dressing for delicate greens.

Sherry vinegar

Vinagre de Jerez is made in the Jerez production zone of Andalusia from Jerez wines and aged in wood, traditionally in the same criaderas-and-solera system of stacked barrels used for sherry, in which younger vinegar steadily refreshes older. The protected designation sets minimum average ages: six months for basic, two years for Reserva, ten for Gran Reserva. The result is nutty and deep. A few drops finish a gazpacho, a pan of mushrooms or a plate of grilled fish, and it is a natural partner for meatless beans (the meatless beans guide). Pommery bottles a sherry vinegar (shop Pommery sherry vinegar).

Cider vinegar

Cider vinegar is apple wine turned sour, and it tastes distinctly of apples. It belongs in a slaw, in barbecue sauce and in a brine for pork.

Rice and other Asian vinegars

Japanese rice vinegar is mild and clean, and it seasons sushi rice, dipping sauces and quick pickles without shouting. Chinese black vinegar, most famously Zhenjiang (Chinkiang) vinegar, a protected geographical indication, is made mainly from glutinous rice and aged until it is dark, mellow and faintly sweet, and it is a classic acid for a dumpling dipping sauce and a bowl of hot and sour soup. The two are not interchangeable.

Fruit and flower vinegars

Fruit and flower vinegars carry the flavor of what went into them, and they do their best work where a dish would otherwise want a little sugar. A strawberry vinegar (shop Artisan strawberry vinegar) can go into a dressing for tomatoes and burrata, and a spoonful stirred into sparkling water makes a quick shrub.

At the far end of the category sits Noma Projects' Wild Rose Vinegar (shop Noma Projects Wild Rose Vinegar), developed by the creative team of the Copenhagen restaurant noma and made by infusing hand-foraged wild beach rose petals into apple cider vinegar. It began as a byproduct of the team's pickled roses. The producer describes it as delicate, balanced and floral, gives its acidity as five percent, and suggests it for everything from a cocktail to a main course to dessert. Noma Projects also credits it with potency, so a few drops go a long way on raw fish, over strawberries, in a dressing for shaved fennel or in a spritz. Noma Projects' mushroom garum (the Noma Projects mushroom garum article) is another of the producer's bottles meant to be used by the spoonful.

The sweet neighbors: saba and white dressing

Saba is not vinegar at all, and white dressings like Prelibato sit beside vinegar rather than inside the category. Saba, or mosto cotto, is cooked grape must reduced to a sweet syrup. Acetaia Leonardi, a family producer in the province of Modena, simmers the must of its own grapes in open cauldrons for more than 24 hours until it is reduced to a third, then ages it in oak barrels for four years (shop Leonardi saba). The product notes describe hints of grapes, plums and raisins. Pour saba over ricotta, roasted squash, aged cheese or vanilla ice cream, or stir a spoon into a pan sauce for duck.

Acetaia Malpighi's Prelibato (shop Malpighi Prelibato), a white dressing, is made from Modenese Trebbiano must aged at least five years in ash barrels, which, the producer says, keeps its light, clear color. It is a pale dressing for fish, shellfish and fruit, for dishes where the color and weight of a dark balsamic would lead.

Cooking with acid

When a dish tastes flat, try acid before more salt. A splash of vinegar at the end cuts the richness of a braise and wakes up a pot of beans. Add it off the heat, in small amounts, and taste between additions. A dish that needed acid will suddenly taste like itself.

Which vinegar for which dish

Matching the vinegar to the dish is mostly a question of weight: delicate food takes a delicate vinegar, rich food a deep one. Set side by side, the types above sort like this.

Dish weight	Vinegar	Where it goes
Delicate	Rice vinegar, white wine vinegar	Raw fish, sushi rice, soft greens, beurre blanc
Rich and earthy	Sherry vinegar	Lentils, mushrooms, beans, gazpacho
Wine-based	Red wine vinegar	Pan sauces, braised lentils, beets, Dijon vinaigrette
Sweet-leaning	Fruit vinegars, saba	Tomatoes and burrata, ricotta, roasted squash, shrubs
Floral finish	Wild rose vinegar	Raw fish, strawberries, shaved fennel, a spritz
Dark and savory	Chinese black vinegar	Dumpling dipping sauce, hot and sour soup

The oil left in a tin of fish plus a spoon of sherry vinegar is a vinaigrette that took ten seconds (the guide to the oil left in a tin of fish).

Storage

According to the Vinegar Institute, vinegar's shelf life is almost indefinite and, because of its acidity, it is self-preserving and generally does not need refrigeration. Keep bottles capped and out of direct sun, and where a bottle's label gives its own storage instructions, follow the label. A cloudy strand or a jelly-like disk forming in a vinegar is the mother, and it is not harmful; filter it out or leave it. A haze, a change of color or a little sediment is only an aesthetic change.

Where to start

For the kitchen: a red wine vinegar for vinaigrettes and a sherry vinegar such as Pommery's (shop Pommery sherry vinegar). For finishing: the Wild Rose (shop Noma Projects Wild Rose Vinegar). For dessert and cheese: Leonardi saba (shop Leonardi saba). Browse further in the vinegar collection (shop the vinegar collection). The oil that completes the vinaigrette is covered in the olive oil buying guide. Products ship across the continental U.S. from theambrosianpantry.com, and visitors can ask staff questions in the shop at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver. The gods drank nectar; the cooks on Olympus, one assumes, kept something sour on hand for the beans.